Is GOP afraid of Trump? Senate Republicans congratulate Kamala Harris despite publicly denying Biden win
Even as Republican senators remain publicly wary about acknowledging Joe Biden as the President-elect, given the current leader of their party and the soon-to-be-ex occupant of the White House has refused to concede the 2020 presidential race, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was greeted on the Senate floor with fist-bumps and congratulations from lawmakers from the other side of the political aisle recently.
The unexpected sight was captured by reporters on Capitol Hill, along with C-SPAN's cameras as top Trump ally and South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham gave Harris a fist-bump. According to CNN, Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC), Mike Rounds (R-SD), James Lankford (R-OK) and Ben Sasse (R-NE) all congratulated her.
Only a week ago, Graham declared he's standing beside Trump and his claims of the 2020 elections being rigged. Celebrating his re-election to the Senate, he said, "Democracy depends upon fair elections," to reporters via a Zoom call. Graham claimed that the Democrats would be appreciated if they were the ones claiming election rigging. "President Trump’s team is going to have a chance to make a case regarding voting irregularities. They deserve a chance to make that case. I’m going to stand with President Trump. If a Democrat were doing this, it’d be cheered on," Graham said.
And he was not the only one. When CNN approached Lankford after he congratulated Harris, he said that he was just being polite. "The election is not settled," Lankford said. "So if you are trying to catch it and spin it however you want to — if someone walks right up to you, you say, 'Hello, congratulations'." Sen Chris Coons (D-DL) claimed in an interview with CNN that his Republican colleagues had privately asked him to congratulate President-elect Biden on their behalf as they couldn't do so publicly as Trump contests the results.
He said, "it’s past time for Republican leaders to stand up and say, 'we should accept the results of this election.’ They call me to say, you know, 'congratulations, please convey my well wishes to the President-elect, but I can't say that publicly yet.' My job here, I think, is to continue to urge them privately to do the right thing. And to help the president accept reality and to help their caucus stand up publicly because frankly, the transition is going to be chaotic at best if it doesn't get moving very soon. It should be underway already."
After refusing to call Biden 'President-elect' on the Senate floor last week, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell appeared to finally concede on November 17 as he promised that the country will have an "orderly" transfer of power in January. The concession came from him after he was asked by a reporter about why the General Services Administration (GSA) hasn't launched an official transition process.
McConnell (R - KY) said the GSA is waiting for legal disputes surrounding the election — filed by the Trump campaign — to be settled in court. "We're going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next one," he said. "All of this will happen right on time and we'll swear in the next administration on January 20. What we all say about it is, frankly, irrelevant."